Pages

Friday, 18 January 2013

it's time for clinical psychology to come down off the fence

I do get fed up with psychological therapies that sit on the fence. With patients and psychiatry, betwixt and between, for fear of losing position or power. Echoing the mental illness mantra and justifying chemical imbalance. Or dysfunctional labels and black sheeping tactics, keeping 'bio' models in place."Don't do it" I say. It's not helpful or fair or relevant or true. We can't help it if we feel the pain of life's struggles, weighted down by what others might think is not hard. If it's tough for us then it's tough for us. That has to be enough for a compassionate stance. And solidarity with users and survivors and carers.Get alongside like the psychotherapists and psychoanalysts do. Feel our pain and get mad with us. Let's bring about change to the psychiatric paradigm. Not a quick fix technique but a relationship focus and level paths for all.

protest London 29 November 2012

Willie Patterson

author of Jeff Hawke

My dad Willie Patterson was a writer, most remembered for Jeff Hawke, the science fiction comic strip that he scripted and wrote from 1956 to 1969, for the Daily Express in London. It is described as "a benchmark in intelligent, adult-oriented storytelling".

I remember him as a principled person, a gentleman who could also be autocratic. He liked wearing handmade suits and silk ties, and did things in a 'big' way. As in organising fireworks displays for the community where we lived or taking me to ringside seats at the circus, where as a young girl I shook hands with Coco the Clown.